38 | APRIL 30 • 2020
awards ceremony, Gardner
was introduced to Sfire, who’
d
won an award the previous
year as part of the feminist
filmmaking collective Final
Girls; she was looking to start
a theater as well.
Today, Gardner and Sfire
describe their partnership in
similar terms. Over coffee, on
a bright, chilly afternoon at
Oloman Cafe pre-pandemic,
Sfire said they make a good
yin and yang. She values his
holistic approach to program-
ming and ability to curate a
balanced slate of works span-
ning languages, cultures and
authorial perspectives, repre-
senting without tokenizing.
“He’
ll do an entire grouping
of Korean cinema to show
the balance of what that
means, so there isn’
t just one
movie representing an entire
country,” she said. The same
principle goes, she said, for
LGBT-centered works and
films by women.
“Josh is not a bro,” she
said, laughing, when asked
about the role of gender in
their partnership. “He may be
more of a feminist than me.”
Sfire’
s grandfather, who
emigrated to the U.S. from
Lebanon, started working
at Eastern Market at age 11
before learning English. He
then started a string of gro-
cery stores, eventually coming
to own seven across Detroit
and Birmingham. Lara still
works in Detroit real estate
development with her fam-
ily and brings what she and
Gardner both describe as
a more business-minded
approach.
Though the Film Lab is the
first business Sfire’
s started
herself, having a hand in
development and growing up
around entrepreneurs helped
her grasp that bumps are
expected in any business.
“I never know what the
hell is going to happen,” she
said of what lands with audi-
ences. Specifically, she recalls
a screening of Bong Joon
Ho’
s cult-favorite class satire
Snowpiercer, which she and
Gardner programmed when
they couldn’
t book the direc-
tor’
s newest, Parasite, near
the height of its Oscar cam-
paign. Expecting a small, ear-
ly-30s male turnout, she was
shocked to find their space
packed with middle-aged
women.
“It’
s never what you think
it’
s going to be, and so it
always ends up being really
fun,” she mused. “I love being
wrong.”
A BRIDGE IN HAMTRAMCK
Despite the Film Lab’
s mis-
sion of cultural exchange,
reaching across audiences —
even in its own small, dense
neighborhood — can some-
times be a challenge. Though
Hamtramck’
s often thought
by outsiders to be a Polish
community first, Polish-
descended Americans now
represent only a fraction of its
population, having migrated
over several decades to sub-
urbs like Madison Heights.
Meanwhile, Hamtramck’
s
become majority-Mus-
lim, rich in Yemeni and
Bangladeshi shops and
restaurants. Its residents
speak more than 40 lan-
guages, according to a 2019
Hamtramck Review article.
Countless communities
co-exist alongside an exten-
sive network of bars and arts
spaces; it’
s the rare Michigan
neighborhood in which res-
idents can walk to work or
school.
According to Gardner, the
neighborhood stood out for
its sense of community and
how well its makeup suits it
to the Film Lab’
s mission.
“We’
re focusing on world
cinema, and there’
s such rich
cultures here from all over
the world,” he said.
Bridging Hamtramck’
s arts
scene and immigrant commu-
nities has always been a pri-
ority for the founders. With
their focus on world cinema,
Sfire expresses a shared desire
to “show films that appeal to
everybody,” though not in
the Marvel manner. Drawing
people in, she said, is “how
we’
ll get to know the commu-
nity, and then they’
ll probably
tell us what they’
re interested
in.”
In time and once
re-opened, the founders plan
to expand their space into a
two-screen theater with a full
food and beverage program.
Sfire hopes in time that Film
Lab’
s expanded space will
serve filmmakers and become
a hub for productions and
classes.
“It’
s nice to feel wanted,”
she said of opening a busi-
ness in Metro Detroit, “and
also that you might actually
be able to do something that
makes a difference.”
But diversifying their
audience has remained a
challenge. The Film Lab
offers drinks, but many of its
Muslim neighbors abstain
from alcohol.
Arts&Life
’
d
rt
n
The Film Lab’s
audience is “never
what you think it’s
going to be,”
— LARA SFIRE, THE FILM LAB
CO-FOUNDER
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